Posts Tagged ‘feelings’

We Believe…That Everyone’s Feelings Count

Posted: March 31, 2011 in Mama Says Namaste
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I’m going through our Family Creed and addressing each line.  The next one up is “We believe…that everyone’s feelings count.” Funny enough, my first inclination on this as a family creed is that it means that we pay attention to the feelings of our small children.  While I definitely believe that is important, I’ve been struck lately that it really means everyone.  That means us parents, too.  Specifically…it’s me as a mom.

Raising children is not an easy task.  I absolutely adore our girls–we have so much fun.  However, knowing that we are shaping the lives of a future generation…and that our household will have a great impact on what our children will become…that’s a lot of pressure.  And that sometimes can equate to major burnout.

Have you had those moments where you feel like a slave in your own house?  Where on top of cleaning the house, cooking meals, doing laundry, paying bills, accomplishing work, and trying to maintain sanity, you have beautiful little children undertow that demand your attention 150% of the time??? I’m there.  If I here “MOMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!”  one more time I may scream and run the other way.  (If you’ve met my youngest, you’ll know that even if I hightailed it to California, I’d still hear her).

Being a mom is a special role, and especially with small children, it’s a highly demanding role.  There is something about being the mom that requires extra nurturing, extra attention, and special boo-boo kisses that only mommies can administer.  How can you say no to a child begging for mommy’s love?

Again, going back to feelings…I want more than anything for my children to feel love in our home.  I want them to feel safe, secure, and at peace.  I want them to know the old cliche, “home is where the heart is”….and our hearts are always open to them.  I want them to feel heard, for them to know we’ll listen and weigh their words seriously no matter what their age or what the topic, and I want them to feel free to be open about their feelings, no matter what they are (I’ll add the caveat that one of our rules in the family is “no hateful talk”, so having the feeling about not liking someone does not equate an “I hate you” in our home, ever).

Now….the whole paragraph above…let’s take out the kids and put the parents in there.  It’s just as important.  It’s not just about acknowledging your children.  I don’t believe in a child-centered home.  One day, those children will leave, and if everything is centered on them, what you can end up with is a shell of who you once were.  I want to ensure that in our home, my feelings, my husband’s feelings…they are just as vital.  Our relationship is #1 in our home–taking the time to invest in each other is, to me, the best thing I can do for my children.

Showing them an example of  a loving, healthy relationship is important because this is the first and foremost impression they will carry for relationships throughout their lives.  My parents came from families with unhappy marriages/divorces…they overcame all odds to remain happily married, but they are the first to say that although their history didn’t break them, it did make them–they worked hard to establish the relationship they have now, determined not to duplicate the wounds of the past.

Finally, beyond respecting and truly listening to the feelings of your spouse, let’s get to the root of it.  Are you taking the time to listen to you?  I’m getting hit today with how hard it is for me to just let go, wind down, and take some me time.  When the girls are asleep, I relax with my husband, but sitting here tonight on “guys’ night”, I’ve thought about all the things I “need” to do–clean up the kitchen, throw in a load of laundry, answer the gobs of work emails piling up…but where is that time for me?  I get so busy doing that I forget to be.  Taking those moments to rest are so, so important.  If my cup is empty, drained, exhausted, and completely depleted, how can I pour my “riches” over to others, specifically my family?

So…take the time right now to think about you first.  How do you feel?  Have you spent time today doing something just for you to help you remember the amazing person you are?  Second, have you invested in your spouse–let them know their feelings count?  And only after these two things…make sure you wrap your arms around your precious children, no matter what their ages, and let them know that despite all the craziness live throws your way, you truly cherish them.

We Believe…In Celebrating Together…our Heritage…

Posted: February 18, 2011 in Mama Says Namaste
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Line #3 of our Family Creed is “We believe in celebrating together–our faith, our heritage, our traditions.”
This is such a complex line that it’s too much for one blog.  I started writing and saw that I would never make it past the first comma without the need for another blog.  So, line #3 is divided even more, down to the key points–Faith, Heritage, and Tradition.

Celebrating our heritage comes through in so many ways–we are who we somewhat because of where we come from.  Although our past doesn’t define us, our perspective of the world can largely be shaped by the faith, heritage and traditions we choose to hold on to.

We have a rich heritage that includes Amish, Native Americans, and confederate soldiers.  My grandparents on my father’s side were raised Amish–horses and buggies, no electricity, thirteen and sixteen children, the whole caboodle.  My mother’s side of the family brought the Welsh and the Native Americans…the story goes that an Englishman came and swept a Native American squaw off her feet and they lived happily ever after. We still carry the olive skin and dark hair and eyes from this branch of the family tree.

My husband’s history is the deep South.  His grandmother can trace their descendants back to the Mayflower.  There are colonels and belles and even Thomas Edison in his family tree.  His relatives had a love for education and nature, and there are many foresters and naturalists in his family tree.   On his father’s side, there is a hard work ethic that came from starting from nothing and creating a family, and although the history isn’t as known on this side, the heritage they’ve passed down is still just as rich.

So what does this heritage imply for our children?  My husband brings a love of history and a passion for the South…not the “redneck” stereotype, but the true Southern gentleman.  He shares with his children all of the names of the native Southern plants; what they are, what they do, how you can survive off the wilderness…  His grandfathers taught him the importance of hard work and doing things right so that working, in my husband’s mind, is second nature.  He brings work and play together as he truly enjoys what he does, whether it’s his work with 48 Days or playing “Mr. Fix-it” around the house.  His parents fostered his imagination in a way where I am continually amazed by his creativity and the amazing things he comes up with–his time on the floor with our girls in creative play is incredible to watch.

The greatest thing from my heritage is from my Amish grandparents…this was what we carried on the most, and made the greatest impact on our whole family.  My father’s parents taught us the “best of” the Amish, in my mind.  We learned how to do things from scratch…sew, bake, grow a garden and take it from a seed to canning, applesauce, or a fresh rhubarb crisp.  I learned about farming on my uncle’s farm, and learned about flowers from following my grandpa around.  Grandma taught me how to make a perfect stitch, and that if it’s not done right, it’s not done at all.

My grandparents instilled a heritage that, although they chose to leave the Amish ways when they married, the core values and ethics flowed over to their children, their children’s children, and now on to their great-grandchildren.  I could go on and on about the people they were and the impression the made on our whole family.  They welcomed my mother, a naive “worldly” fashion model, and embraced her as one of their own…and in doing so exemplified the love and openness I admire so much as a reflection of the faith we celebrate as well.  My grandmother made such an impact on me I named my daughter after her–not only are we passing on the heritage of our family, we are passing on the family names.  (My paternal grandparents’ engagement picture)

Both of our girls are named after our grandmothers–three grandmas honored, and eight legacies in that generation that we have to thank for the heritage we know now.  We celebrate the history that is in our childhood hearts–the elements of our past and our ancestor’s past that has been stored in our souls and passed down to each generation.  We remember and relish certain things from childhood that become etched in our memory as important…and then we pass it on to our own children.

A Princeton definition of heritage is “practices that are handed down from the past by tradition”…  The practices and stories I learned from my grandparents and my husband did from his have created the crucial foundation for our own definition of family.  We are blessed to have our heritage, and the next post will go further into the traditions we’ve brought into our own home because of it.

What is your heritage?  How do you pass that down in your family?

Our Family Creed

Posted: January 18, 2011 in Mama Says Namaste
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Growing up with the family I have, having basic rules for the house just weren’t enough.  Time-outs included listening to motivational tapes by Zig Ziglar (I know his voice in my sleep now) and laying out goals for the future.  Mom’s top priority was to create a “haven of peace” in our home.  Going with the 48 Days philosophy that to truly succeed you must first know yourself and know your mission, our family had a mission statement we taped on the wall:

In a safe place, people are kind.  Sarcasm, fighting, back-biting and name-calling were exceptions.  Kindness, consideration and forgiveness are the way of life.

In a safe place there is laughter.  Not just the canned laughter of television, but real laughter that comes from sharing meaningful work and play.

In a safe place there are rules.  The rules are few and fair and are made by the people who live and work there, including the children.

In a safe place people listen to one another.  They care about one another and show that they do. 

Please God, make this a safe place. ~Mary MacCracken

What wall, you wonder? The bathroom one, of course!  Where else do you go several times daily and sit/stand still without anything else to do but read something?  If you ever want your family to memorize something, I’m telling you, this is the way to do it!  (And yes, I wrote the above from memory).

Now that my girls are getting older (1 and 3), it’s time that we start really laying out the principles we want to live by.  Although I cherish the mission statement I grew up with, I was eager to find our own.  We do have our basic rules laid out by Ladybug Girl:

But a mission statement is more than that–it’s not just going over all of the “no’s”….it’s about addressing the “yeses”  the things that are most important to us as a family.  I was browsing through a random magazine one day and found it–I don’t know who to trace this to, but this is the essence of what I desire for our home, and what we have chosen to capture as our “family creed.”  This is not only in our bathroom, but on the fridge and in my wallet.

Here is what it says:

Over the next few blogs, I want to hash out each one of these statements above–to address why we chose to have them in our creed and what it means to me.  I’m excited about this and I’m eager to hear about yours.

Do you have a family mission statement (or creed)?